Autumn's new trick

I didn't decorate for Halloween, I am not a big fan of the spooky, goofy, cobweb stuff...but I do love to decorate for fall! So this fall, I replaced the candles that normally reside on out coffee table with 3 pumpkins. When my husband was a kid, he tells me that his Mom would let him and his sister Lauren go to the store and pick out a mini-pumpkin, then his sister and he would have a competition to see which pumpkin would live the longest (Andrew claims that his would always live the longest...but I haven't ever heard Lauren's side of the story). So, since there were 3 pumpkins and there are 2 people and a critter in the Fair family; we each got to choose our pumpkin and we are having a competition to see who's will live the longest (Autumn got the pumpkin in the middle...which in fairness she was not able to choose, she got the leftover pumpkin).

Autumn has a wide variety of interesting tricks that she does, but I have honestly run out of ideas of things to teach her, and she picks up on things so quickly so its easy to teach her things. Her latest trick is: I ask her, "which pumpkin is yours?" and she points to her pumpkin....it is so cute!

Us with our favorite lil' cow

Our pumpkins at night

Andrew said I couldn't dress her up, but he didn't say anything about a cute scarf!

Proud to be an American...and a Texan!

We carved our pumpkins last night and my request was that we do a flag theme. Fortunately, I have a husband who can draw just about anything, so I tasked him to sketch some ideas.

These are the sketches

Did you think he was actually going to use it as a stencil??? HA, he can draw it on there perfectly
without tracing it.

Autumn's contribution to the great pumpkin carving event....she is so helpful!

I did the Texas flag, minus the above star...which looked to complicated for me.

The finished product!

Tech lost because of "fat little girlfriends"

Oh! Mike Leach, Mike Leach, Mike Leach....you stay classy Texas Tech!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6brYtuPX-Q

Sure, blame your poor coaching ability on your players (which you recruited) "fat little girlfriends!"

52-30: The Gift that Keeps on Giving!!!

Ags WIN!!!! WOW, it feels good to say that...and it feels good to get that, haven't won in Lubbock since 1993, monkey off our back! I recognize that a victory over a mediocre and overrated Texas Tech team does not make a successful season, but for now it sure does feel good to revel in. And to top it; for the next year I will have bragging rights over my brother-in-law who is a Tortilla Tech alum.

Andrew and I booked plane tickets and we will be in town for the A&M v. Baylor game and my only request of my Ags for that game is: PLEASE don't let us travel halfway across the country to watch our beloved Aggies get beat by Baylor, albeit an ever improving Baylor. Either way, even if for a mere 3 days, a trip back to Texas and to my ol' stompin' grounds can never be a bad idea....even if by some horrid event the Ags lost (of course then, my oldest sister would obtain bragging rights for the next year, and that would be awful!).

My Cookie Quest

My husband is a cookie monster sometimes he even turns blue and hairy! Since this is the case, and I always had a thing for big, blue, hairy monsters, I like to feed his cookie addiction.

This is actually a picture of him I took yesterday.

I prefer other sweets like: sugar cookies, pies, ice cream, cakes, brownies, puddings....you name it I love it....especially if it has fruit in it! Unfortunately, my husband being the good cookie monster he is, only really likes cookies....and really only chocolate chip cookies (though recently he has decided that peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are good, too). As such, I often make deserts...I am on this baking kick....and have to eat them all by myself, now I know this might seem like a good problem but for somebody who already has big hips and a rather large rear end....a whole pan of shortbread brownies, raspberry pie, or chocolate cake is definitely NOT a good thing (enter our neighbors: Jason, Danielle and Clayton, who usually get a rather large plate of goodies every week).

I usually try to bake my husband a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies every few weeks unfortunately, no recipe I have tried for chocolate chip cookies have ever been really good. I have tried dozens of various recipes which resulted in differing combination of sugars, baking sodas/powders and butter consistencies. Alas, the cookies would still turn out flat with burned crispy edges. I had even resorted to halving and quartering the recipe amount, so I could try that many more recipes. My cookie monster and I, were looking for a delightfully soft and fluffy cookie with equal doneness and not cookies that flattened like a pancake with crunchy edges.

My cookie quest continued until this past week when I watched an episode of, "Good Eats" on the Food Network channel where Alton Brown was exposing the varying secrets of chocolate chip cookies. He made 3 different types of chocolate chip cookies: crispy, fluffy and chewy. When I watched him make the fluffy cookie recipe, I knew it was the one (you know, kind of like when you tried on wedding dresses and found the perfect dress and you instantly knew it was the dress you were going to get married in)! Well, instantly I knew it was the cookie that I was going to marry....I mean make. The secret was simple really: butter flavored shortening in place of regular butter. I had thought of using shortening as a replacement for the butter, but was worried about having that waxy texture (like in buttercream icing). Also, I didn't realize that they even made butter flavored shortening....I mean imagine the concept...its brilliant really BUTTER FLAVORED FAT....its perfect, especially for a butter lover like myself!!!!!! Using the shortening allows the fat to melt slower than butter would and thus can hold its height and soft texture better than using better.

So here it is: the recipe that changed my life!

The Puffy Recipe:

• 1 cup butter-flavored shortening
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Hardware:

• Ice cream scooper (#20 disher, to be exact)
• Parchment paper
• Baking sheets
• Mixer

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the shortening, sugar, and brown sugar in the mixer's work bowl, and cream until light and fluffy. In the meantime, sift together the cake flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside.

Add the eggs 1 at a time to the creamed mixture. Then add vanilla. Increase the speed until thoroughly incorporated.

With the mixer set to low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the shortening and combine well. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill the dough. Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 per sheet. Bake for 13 minutes or until golden brown and puffy, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool and store in an airtight-container.

Alton Brown you are my hero!!!!!

My fall decor is finally complete now that winter temperatures have arrived...

The changing leaves and cool, crisp weather encouraged me to decorate for fall even though I was not originally planning to as the decorations were nestled away snuggly in our fully packed storage unit. But, as I am a sucker for cooler weather and the novelty of an actual season change, I ever so sweetly requested that my husband (and unfortunately for Jason, he got dragged into this event also) dig through the madness of the storage unit to find the needle in the haystack that is marked "Fall decorations." I had one lingering project for my fall decos to be completed....and this required some of the leaves to have changed colors......

Homemade leaf garland with pressed fall leaves I searched the area for (please excuse
the messy counters in the mirror)

Entry table and mirror all fall'd out

Windowsill in living room - I love that 'lil turkey

Coffee table with pumpkins and fall pillow in backgroundKitchen table
My mother in law sent me this super cute fall decoration....the TX flag got booted

for a little while...sorry Texas!

I have other decorations around, but I forgot to take pictures...and basically I am too lazy to re-upload more photos, so you only get the highlights :)

Washington D.C. part II

Upon summarizing the events of this past weekend, I realized that we really did try to do too much! The trip was never as relaxing as it should have been in spite of the splendid sights and sounds of such a fantastic city. Day 2 started out just as early as the previous day; only this time our feet were a little less excited about the upcoming events. Andrew dropped me off at the George Washington Monument around 0745 so I could stand in line for tickets to go up to the top of the monument while he parked the car. The ticket office didn't open until 0830 and standing in line I realized something very important about the outfit I so meticulously packed for Monday's adventures......it was NOT warm enough for the brisk DC air! Standing in line freezing my butt off I realized that there was only one thing that was going to get me through the next 45 minutes of standing in line: I needed to make a friend to talk to and FAST! So the unsuspecting man in front of me soon found out all about our previous days adventures, Texas, Ft. Hood, Ft. Lee and our anticipated move to Germany. Fortunately for myself, he was formerly in the Army and cared a great deal about my stories....little did he know that I really didn't care if he cared or not, I needed somebody to talk to keep my mouth running and my mind off the cold. He spoke of his time in the Army and how he loved it so and would have made a career out of the military if wasn't for his ill fated marriage to a woman who couldn't deal with the Army life. After nearly an hour of small talk to keep warm, we finally got our tickets for 1500.

After Andrew was finished parking the car we met up and started our journey across the national mall to the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world containing millions of books, photos, manuscripts, maps and recordings it also serves as the research arm for congress. The building was completed in 1897 and was hailed to be the largest, costliest, and safest library in the world. Today, the library spans over three buildings settled on the east side of the national mall. The Jefferson building (the first building built) was the sole building open on Columbus Day, and the only one that we were able to tour. It is a large, incredibly elaborate and overly ornate building constructed in the Italian Renaissance fashion.
The reading rooms, where people are allowed to research and study the stacks of available resources are amazing.
Our next stop was a tour of the Capitol building.
The Capitol RotundaThe Center of Washington D.C. in the center of the Capitol building The Speaker of the House's ChamberStatuary HallOur final stop for the day was back to the Washington Monument for our scheduled time to go to the top of the monument. The 60 second elevator ride takes you to a level of 500 ft. where windows on each side of the obelisk allow you to view the north, south, east and west sides of the mall.

Washington D.C.

This past weekend, Andrew had a 4-day weekend and so we decided to venture up to the D.C. area and enjoy our nation's Capitol. During the summer of 2006, we stayed in D.C. for 2 nights on our drive from Ft. Benning, GA to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD. On our first trip there we did all of major highlights and saw nearly every important monument/building/landmark and the American History museum. This visit we were a little more poignant about what we wanted to see and do. Ideally, we had hoped to visit and tour the Pentagon and the 9/11 memorial there. Unfortunately in order to visit the Pentagon it is required that you turn in your information 15 days prior to your visit so they can perform a background check. We didn't exactly plan this trip as I had hoped....aka, I couldn't a get direct answer from my husband as to whether we were for sure planning to go or not until Friday and we went on Sunday! I generally prefer to have an organized plan, but I am not anal about that and can still "wing it" and go with the flow. So on Saturday, we came up with a narrowed itinerary of events:

Iwo Jima - We didn't see this amazing memorial last time we were in D.C. and I will probably never go back without stopping by. It truly is one of the most awe inspiring monuments I have seen. Not only is the massive size and amazing grounds impressive, but the inspiring moment that is depicted is awesome. It was our first stop of the day, so the sun was still rising (we got an early start to the day) and I was able to capture some really good photos.
Thomas Jefferson's Monument was our next stop. T.J. is not my favorite founding father, but his memorial is definitely beautiful. The view overlooking the Potomac River and onto the National Mall is dazzling. I supposed I didn't expect the monument to be so gigantic! They even have a museum of artifacts underneath the monument.....T.J. might just be starting to grow on me a bit.

National Air and Space Museum - This Smithsonian contains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world; including the 1903 Wright Brothers plane and the Spirit of St. Louis (the first airplane to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, by Charles Lindbergh), as well as many artifacts from NASAs journey to the moon. There was a great deal of displays that interested me in this gallery, but overall I believe it to be more of a man's museum.
The National Portrait Gallery - This Smithsonian which is not located directly on the National Mall as many of the others are, tells the story of our nations history through photographs, paintings and other artistic artifacts. Of particular interest was the "America's President's" exhibit which is the only complete collection of American Presidential portraits outside of the White House. Included in the collection was a display of American Presidential dinnerware including plates that both G. Washington and Abraham Lincoln used in the White House. I don't believe that my husband was very excited about my enthusiasm toward visiting this Smithsonian, but afterward even he agreed that the museum was incredibly interesting and had hoards of interesting American artwork.
And finally, after sightseeing all day and driving around D.C. in search of our hotel amidst the crowds of GLBT protesters covered in pink shirts and rainbow buttons carrying "peace, love and gays" signs we voyaged on a 4 hour dinner cruise around the beltway on the Potomac. Could you think of anything more romantic than cruising around our nation's capitol while eating a 5 course meal and viewing our country's finest sights????